


Finding Stevonnie

by tlok_is_bad



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amnesia, Amnesiac Stevonnie, Canon Non-Binary Character, Gen, Post-Canon, Post-Episode s05e29-32 Change Your Mind, Post-Series Pre-Movie, Spoilers for Episode: s05e29-32 Change Your Mind
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-26
Updated: 2019-06-24
Packaged: 2020-03-19 18:07:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18975550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tlok_is_bad/pseuds/tlok_is_bad
Summary: Stevonnie loses their memory and is transported far away. Now, they must find their way in life without even knowing that they’re a fusion.**Disclaimer: I have discontinued this story because of other focuses in my life. Here's hoping that I can bring it back someday.**





	1. These Last Few Seconds

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While I have tons of writing experience, this is my first fanfiction. I hope you enjoy, and I’m always open to constructive criticism! Also, chapter 1 is really short but the rest of the chapters should be longer.

Even after hundreds of corrupted gems were healed by Steven and the Diamonds, there were still more in the wild, undetected thus far. Now one had made her way to the Crystal Gems’ Temple in Beach City, and she was massive, a beast of unfathomable power and formerly one of the highest ranking gems under the Order of the Diamonds. The Temple was crumbling, its head completely knocked off and its magical door and warp pad destroyed as well. Garnet, Amethyst, Pearl, and all other defending gems had been poofed.

Now, only Steven, Connie, and Lion remained. The former two fused on instinct into Stevonnie, sword and shield in hand, and charged towards the corrupted gem on the back of Lion, slashing at one of her clawed feet. But it was not to be; they could do no more. Lion roared a portal into existence, prepared to get them all away. Suddenly, however, the corrupted gem looked down at Stevonnie and screamed, a horrific sound which resonated through the core of the part-human fusion. This was no ordinary sound, but a power unleashed which once had a practical purpose before the gem’s corruption.

All of a sudden, Stevonnie felt as though something was missing. Why were on this beach, fighting this huge thing? Who were they before these last few seconds? Everything had vanished. Lion ran forward and launched them into his portal, but he did not follow. Then, the world was nought.

* * *

When Stevonnie awoke, they found themself lying in the grass, surrounded by several live oaks. Knowing this, they realized that they still remembered things—like what a live oak was, and what their name was. They knew solid facts, about the world. They just didn’t know… anything else.

Standing up, they spied a town in the distance. Stomach rumbling, they began the journey to get some food. From there, they’d figure it out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the record, and the future of this fic, I perceive Stevonnie’s age to be the combination of Steven and Connie’s ages **within the same set of ten.** So since Steven is 14 and Connie is 13, Stevonnie is 17.


	2. Townsville

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stevonnie discovers a boringly named settlement which may be hiding some secrets of its own.

As Stevonnie neared the village, they read a large sign not unlike that of… the  name escaped their grasp. Actually, they had no idea what they were thinking about in the first place. Anyways, the sign read the following:

WELCOME TO TOWNSVILLE, TEJAS, WINNER OF THE NORTH  AMERICAN MOST BORING TOWN NAME COMPETITION FOR TEN YEARS STRAIGHT!

Scribbled underneath this in red ink were the words, “ _ Monsters lurk here.  _ _ Begone, traveller, for your own safety! _ ”

Disregarding the graffitied statement, Stevonnie began their trek into  Townsville. It was a quiet and quaint little village, relatively small cabins spread out across a large area. In the distance, there were several farms, both for plants and livestock. Stevonnie almost began a debate with themself about the ethics of farming, but decided against it for the time being. Right then, their priority had to be getting themself fed and finding somewhere to sleep; their stomach was growling and their muscles ached like all hell.

Spotting a diner, they opened its door, bell jingling, to see an elderly white  lady standing at the restaurant’s reception table. Perking up, she said, “Well, hey there, darlin’! We don’t get many visitors ‘round here; what can I get’cha?”

“What have—”  Stevonnie had a terrible coughing fit, during which the  hostess walked over to them quickly and patted on their back to help stop the fit. “Thank you, ma’am,” Stevonnie gasped.

“Well, that’s no problem, honey, but you look like you’ve had a rough time as  of late.” She eyed the teen’s several cuts and bruises, as well as their gem of pinkish red, and returned to the desk. “Whatever you like, you can have it, on the house.”

Stevonnie smiled their thanks. “What have you got?”

The hostess helped them pick something out, and they got seated at a booth. As  there were no other customers, the old lady sat down to talk with them, at their consent. “Where are you from, missy?” she began. “Or, um, mister?”

This conundrum suddenly became to clear to Stevonnie. “Neither, I guess. Or  both? I… I don’t really know. And I don’t know where I’m from, either.”

“What do you mean? Ya’ gotta’ come from somewhere, don’cha?”

“I mean… I don’t remember anything from before today.”

The hostess suddenly donned an expression of great concern. After a moment  she said, “Do you know your name?”

They nodded. “Stevonnie.”

“That’s an unusual name — no offense. It suits someone as unusual as you!” A second passed. “It suits this here town, too.”

“What do you mean?”

“Strange things happen here, stranger. Of course, most of it’s just rumor, just like all those other towns where strange things supposedly happen. Roswell, Beach City, Gravity Falls, the likes.”

Stevonnie laughed. “‘Townsville’ doesn’t seem like the kind of place where weird stuff would happen.”

The hostess nodded slowly. After a minute or so, she said, “My sister has an inn down Main Street. Why don’t you stay there for the night?”

Grateful, Stevonnie accepted the offer and went to the inn. After receiving a call from the restaurant hostess, the inn’s manager allowed Stevonnie to stay there for free. The room they were given was small and stuffy and the bed was scratchy, but it was something, and the best room they could ever clearly recall sleeping in. Quite rapidly they fell into a blissful sleep.

* * *

 

Stevonnie awoke to a raging headache. They checked the analog clock on the one nightstand to find that it was already one PM. As they stepped out of the first-floor room, the manager — the hostess’ sister — said, “Good afternoon. Did you sleep well?”

They groaned sleepily in reply. They had had dreams, terrible nightmares, but now their contents were already fading away.

“In any case,” said the manager. “I better ask ya’ how long ya’ gonna be stayin’ for.”

“Huh? Oh, right, I guess I need to pay you.”

The manager shook her head. “Not today. But if you’re gonna be around here for a while, I am in need in assistance. Care to work for your rent?”

Stevonnie’s eyes lit up. “Oh, yes, of course! I need something to do anyways.”

The arrangements were made, and they secured a job at the Townsville Inn. Slowly, a routine set in place: Work, eat, sleep. Work, eat, sleep. Work, eat, sleep. It was tiring, but it was stable, and Stevonnie found themself liking the structure of it all. Deep down, they knew they would have to leave eventually, but for now, they could use the rest. Something had happened to them that they couldn’t explain, and they figured this could help them be prepared for when whatever something happened. They didn’t know what was to come, but they could tell… there was something going on, and they would have to find out what.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No, it's not a crossover.


	3. Meanwhile, In Beach City...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Crystal Gems realize that Steven and Connie are nowhere to be seen.

The gem monster was incredible in stature, nearing the size of the Temple which she had decimated. (Bismuth would have a lot of work to do; even the warp pad was shattered.) She was primarily a golden brown in color, with a tale lined with huge spikes, six legs, two arms, and a roaring voice which shook the beach, sending waves of sand flying into the air. Luckily, Garnet, Amethyst, and even Pearl had regenerated in haste, and Alexandrite was locked in battle with the beast, trying to push it out away from the little peninsula.

Alexandrite was flung into the remains of the Temple, sending a cascade of earth crumbling from the hilltop. The lighthouse shook with this tremor, and Ronaldo ran out of it, taking a video despite the inherent risk. Struggling against her weight, Alexandrite pushed on the corrupted gem with all her strength, doing her best to keep it together even when fused of four weakened, quickly-regenerated gems. When defeat seemed inevitable, her maximum capacity became realized, and she flung the corrupted gem into the ocean, then jumped high into the clouds and came crashing down, giant version of Sardonyx’ hammer in hand, and poofed the monster.

Exhausted more than ever, she unfused. Despite the pains pulling at her, Garnet immediately set out underwater to retrieve the gemstone while the other two trudged back to the obliterated Temple. Upon reaching it, they pushed through their tiredness and surveyed the area for all the other poofed Crystal Gems who had helped in the fight (though Pearl did most of the work searching). They secured Peridot, Bismuth, Biggs, Snowflake, and several others. Luckily, none of them were shattered, though a couple were cracked. The only one who remained unfound was Lapis. Until…

“Hey,” she said dryly, approaching Amethyst and Pearl.

“You reformed already?” asked the former.

“Nope. Why would I have needed to?”

“So you just…” began Pearl. “ _ Stood _ there,  _ watching? _ ”

“Watching what?” Lapis glanced at the ruins for a moment. “Oh. Yeah, I don’t know what just happened, but I wasn’t here for it.”

“This doesn’t make any sense! I could have sworn I saw your gem fall somewhere during the fight.”

Amethyst was prodding around in the rubble, and picked up a green gem shaped like a water droplet. “Uh, was it this?” she asked.

“Oh,” said Pearl, embarrassed slightly. “A Jade.”

With that resolved, the three of them sat down to wait for Garnet, a small pile of gemstones beside them. Seconds after sitting down, however, both Pearl and Amethyst released their physical forms once again, leaving Lapis to stare at the slow, crashing waves of the Atlantic. Eventually, Garnet emerged from the water, carrying the corrupted gem in a bubble.

* * *

 

All of the poofed gems were taken to Rose’s fountain by Garnet (Lapis opted to stay behind). The healing tears wouldn’t directly do anything to the gems who were simply healing inside their gemstones, but just in case it could speed up the regeneration process, she put them in the water anyway. Indeed, most reformed in under a minute, fully healed. After a couple of minutes’ time, Pearl and Amethyst reformed. Seeing that the corrupted gem was still in a bubble instead of being healed, they immediately came over to Garnet.

“Pearl,” she said. “You mingled with the Homeworld elites far more than even Sapphire did. Do you know what kind of gem this is?”

“Can’t you just use your future vision?” asked Amethyst.

“It’s a little too painful to open my eyes right now.”

“Wait, you did all of this  _ blind? _ ”

“That’s not your concern. Pearl, answer the question.”

Pearl studied the gem, tinted slightly by the violet of Garnet’s bubble, for a while. Finally, she said, “She looks like… an Amber.”

“What’s that?” asked Amethyst.

“Ambers are extremely rare and costly to make. They have the ability to manipulate one’s memory, such as to draw out truth in a high-order court situation, or to stop prisoners from escaping by removing critical knowledge from their minds. But they’re very hard to control, and their abilities don’t always work; most of the time, they either can’t reach deep enough into a gem’s mind or are so powerful that instead of doing anything useful, the gem’s physical form simply dissipates. That must explain how so many gems were poofed so quickly during the battle.”

Suddenly, Garnet dissipated her shades and dunked head first into the fountain. When she resurfaced, all three eyes were wide open. “Pearl,” she began. “What kind of effect could an Amber’s abilities have on organic matter?”

“I’m not really sure… why?”

Amethyst realized it before Garnet could answer and said, “Where’s Steven?”

* * *

 

The main three Crystal Gems and Lapis searched all over the town (after dropping the Amber in Rose’s fountain), but to no avail. Pretty quickly, Pearl had also noticed Connie’s disappearance. Despite the fact that they were worried sick, however, there was a small relief in knowing that none of the townsfolk had been hurt during battle — except for one.

They found Ronaldo laying on the grass at the top of the still-mostly-standing hill behind the Crystal Temple, moving his arms and legs like he was making snow angels in the grass… grass angels. Garnet picked him up and shook him when he didn’t respond to any of their greetings. Dazed, he stared at her and said, slow and slurred, “Who are you?”

Amethyst gasped. “How could he forget us? Wasn’t creepily watching us, like, his whole deal?”

“The corrupted Amber must have wiped his memory,” said Garnet.

The gems made their way back down to the beach, Garnet carrying Ronaldo, wracking their minds to try and figure out where Steven and Connie could have gone. When they reached the sand, they were greeted by Lion, who stared meaningfully.

“I don’t suppose you know where they went?” asked Pearl, feeling stupid to be talking to the cat. In response, Lion sat down and gestured with his head. “Huh?” said Pearl.

“He wants you to ride him,” said Garnet.

“H-how do you know?”

“Just trust me.”

Nervously, Pearl mounted the pink back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A return to Beach City, yay! But where will we go from here?


	4. Map of Townsville

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! I know I haven't updated in a while, but I'm having a bit of a block with the end of chapter 4 - which is almost done, other than that. But I figured I might as well update you with a map of the totally not suspicious little village of Townsville, Tejas.


	5. Monsters Lurk Here

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The rumors about Townsville, Tejas turn out to be true.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I realized the other day that it doesn’t make sense for the newly caught corrupted gems, such as Amber, to be put in Rose’s spring without the presence of the other three Diamonds, as happened in chapter 3, but for plot convenience I’m going to explain it away with “their essence having been imprinted at the scene” or something poetic like that.

“Cha-ching,” Stevonnie murmured as they pressed the bell at the hotel counter. A temporary amusement, they had taken to such things to fill the empty time which was otherwise spent marinating on their situation and racking their brain to see if there was anything,  _ anything _ that might even hint at who they used to be. And they argued with themself a lot, like about whether or not it was even worth it to try and figure out their old life, but also even basic stuff like what kinds of food they like. When they argued with themself it sometimes almost felt as if they had two minds about some things. They figured they should probably have a psychologist check for signs of schizophrenia.

But where would they even  _ find _ a psychologist? Certainly not in Townsville, because this stupid village was so dull they could hardly name half of the dozen or so people seen around regularly. There wasn’t anything in this place, and they didn’t have any way of leaving—

They took a deep breath.  _ It’s just a thought. _ To try and steady themself, they reminded themself of everything they knew about who they were, something suggested to them by their boss and landlady, Margaret, who had been living the dull life for sixty-odd years.  _ I am Stevonnie, _ they thought.  _ I have amnesia. I have a large gemstone embedded in my stomach, for some reason. I was on the back of a pink lion and now I’m here. In Townsville. As a hotel clerk. I am Stevonnie. I am fine. It’s just a thought. _

“You awake?” came the smirking voice of Margaret, who approached from behind, out of the door which led to her room.

Stevonnie turned to face her, nodded and opened their eyes, not having realized they were closed “Yeah, just… steadying myself.”

Margaret placed a hand on their shoulder. “Listen, kid. I know that all o’ this is, like, mind-bogglin’ly slow. But trust me when I tell you, this here town has more to it than meets the eye. Much more.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, why’d ya’ think anyone’d name a place sommin’ as borin’ as  _ ‘Townsville’ _ if they weren’t tryin’ to  _ distract _ the outsiders from what’s really going on around here? And nice try with that, Townsville founders, I say, because when you called it that, that just made it ten times more interesting than your average, run-o’-the-mill ‘interesting’ town names!”

“What are you implying?” Stevonnie’s mind was running through all kinds of possibilities, some logical but most unreasonable.

Margaret snorted. “Did you not read the dang welcome sign?  _ ‘Monsters lurk here!’ _ ” she mocked. “ _ ‘Begone, travellers, for thy own safety!’ _ ”

“Actually, it’s ‘for  _ your _ own safety,’” Stevonnie corrected quickly. “Which is actually correct for the time period when this town was founded, as back then ‘thou’ was used as the informal second person pronoun, meaning it would have been quite rude to—”

Waving her hands in front of her face, Margaret said, “Yeah, yeah, yeah! Well, that warnin’ ain’t there for nothin’, kid. There’re some strange things that happen in this town every once in a while. For the most part, we just keep quiet about it all and the issue usually gets resolved.”

Stevonnie’s eyes narrowed. “What kind of strange things? And what do you mean, ‘resolved?’”

Margaret shook her head. “Here, lemme just show you.” She led the other out of the hotel, flipping the ‘open’ sign around to say ‘closed.’

* * *

The pair walked for about an hour south of town, Stevonnie’s own endurance surprising themself. Eventually, they came across a small, rocky opening in the side of a short hill, draped over in the front by vines, but not so thick as to block vision of the opening. When Margaret stopped several yards in front of it, Stevonnie asked, “A cave? What’s so special about this?”

“ _ That _ is where the monsters lurk, my child.”

“Actual monsters?” They raised an eyebrow, sarcastic. “Really?”

“Quit the tone! I’m old enough where I don’t walk anywhere I don’t need to, so you’d better believe I didn’t take you out here for a prank. Now, listen carefully. The Native peoples of this region, who have been here for many thousands of years longer than our peoples, mind you, have a legend that claims there are great spirit beasts wandering in the darkness down there—note the inscription.”

While Stevonnie of course couldn’t read it, there were some markings carved into the rock easily recognizable as writing.

“According to the legend,” Margaret continued, “These spirits were once mortals just like you or I, but were transformed into undying beasts by the some of the Native peoples’ gods as retribution for trying to question the ways of the deities. The gods in question broke these people in more ways than one by singing a long lost incantation.”

“And you’re saying that’s true?” Stevonnie was incredulous.

“Of course not, and I said to quit the tone! It’s just a thinly veiled indoctrination story for the most part, but all legends are based in fact. The gods may not be real, but the monsters certainly are! A fact that’s been covered up by the local authorities, I may remind you. And from time to time, a monster escapes from the caverns, sometimes even making it into the town, but before any of us have time to process what we’re viewing, it’s driven away by an unseen savior. Someone in this town must be a cartoon-style monster-hunting vigilante—it sounds crazy, especially coming from me, but it’s true!”

Stevonnie stared at her in disbelief. “That sounds awesome, but I need more evidence.”

Suddenly, a rumble began to emanate from an unknown location, feeling as if it were coming form all around them. It got louder and louder, Stevonnie and Margaret slowly backing away from the cave entrance. The rumbling became concentrated, centering around that very opening, until a chunk of limestone was thrown from it, and a terrible beast emerged from the darkness. It was the size of a bear, at least, but bore more resemblance to a shark with legs, due ot its huge fin and blue-grey hue, and the legs themselves were massive, almost like tree stumps in their breadth. It had arms, too, of similar caliber, and they were raised into the sky as it stood on its hind legs, roaring above the two humans. It prepared to collapse down on them, to crush them, and they were running but the terrain was rough and they couldn’t get far enough, not with Stevonnie not wanting to leave the weaker Margaret behind, and then, just a second before they were to be crushed, something deep inside Stevonnie awoke, and the jewel embedded in their stomach began to glow a bright, pinkish white, and suddenly—

A brilliant pink shield appeared out of thin air, huge and encompassing, impenetrable, guarding the humans against their attacker.

 

_ To be continued... _

 


End file.
